One Banner Shall Fly
by xMusicallyAd3ptx
Summary: A man, a shadow of his former self, lives in quiet rectitude as the world falls apart around him. A girl, a captive now in the hands of a different enemy, longs to be rid of cages and lies. When a visitor comes to the man's island and he learns of the news of the world he has been deaf to, what will he choose to do? AU. A breaking of the silence of the Quiet Isle.
1. Chapter 1

One Banner Shall Fly

 **Disclaimer** : I own nothing but my original characters. Thank you for reading and enjoy.

* * *

 **Prologue**

 _Death of a Dog_

* * *

" _A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself."_

 _~Josh Billings._

oOoOoOo

He had fought, and he had lost.

Now he lay, a gash-ridden cur beneath an old tree, waiting for the Master of All to take him into its unknown service. The littlest Stark girl had dressed his wounds, perhaps her way of reimbursing him for his protection, and without any further action, vanished; he had begged her for mercy, for quickness, but she denied him, instead looking him in the eyes with the dying embers of hatred and something that he could not quite distinguish. Somehow, deep within himself, he could not find an arrow of blame with which to string his mind's bow; he had bought this fate with his sins, old and new.

He presently closed his eyes, trying vainly to suppress the pain that ravaged his body. He must have looked piteous at that moment, laying there, his dog's blood leaking into the earth. Perhaps it would kill all the grass, and maybe this old tree he would draw his last breath beneath, and in his death accomplish the one thing he had dedicated his being to: stealing away the gift of life.

The air came to his lungs with more difficulty now, and his breathing turned to ragged pants. He peeled back his eyelids, wanting to get a good look at the place that would be his last, but his vision swam, a murky and smudged scope, and he couldn't make anything out. Everything was a shadow, and for a moment his lack of faith in the supernatural faltered, and he wondered if this was to be his world now. A landscape of blur and darkness, as his life had been.

Footsteps sounded suddenly behind him, approaching at an unhurried pace. They drew near, to a spot just beside the tree and behind his head. He looked up, for a moment thinking, hoping, that it was the Stark girl, returned with a changed mind and a drawn blade. But the only thing that met his gaze was a tall and spindly shadow, bent slightly over and presumably looking down at him.

"Who is it?" he managed to rasp out, his own voice sounding foreign to himself. It was weak and shallow, like an old man after climbing a long flight of steps. "Is it a spectator? Come to watch the Hound die?"

His queries were met with silence. The shadow came closer, sinking towards him and halting but a few breaths before his face. It sat motionless for a moment, before he heard the words that would change it all.

"Yes, I have come to watch the Hound die. But I have also come to watch _you_ live."

And with that, Sandor Clegane lost his grip on consciousness.

oOoOoOo

Months had passed since the Hound had died under that tree by the Trident, and Sandor Clegane had crawled out from beneath that darkness. It was not so much that the Hound had been totally eradicated, but simply been fractured, and through the fissures the man trapped within had managed to seep out. He had shed his fur and taken on life as the Gravedigger, a penniless monk who lived in silence with his brothers of the faith on a remote island in the river Trident.

He had been pulled from the clutches of death by a man known only as Elder Brother, a tall man with a square, shaved head, who spoke with a tongue that sounded like it had seen eons and eons pass. Elder Brother had dressed him, clothed him, put him among the ranks of the penitents, telling him often that, "he should begin to ponder what it meant to be alive now." Sandor felt no anger or hatred towards him, the man who had refused Death, nor did he feel gratitude or kinship. He simply did as the man asked.

Alongside his brothers, Sandor toiled, tilling the earth, planting, digging graves, all in service to the gods. He took no stance on the divines now, and he knew within himself that he never would; they would be something to some and nothing to him, regardless of existence.

His leg, grievously injured during his final skirmish, had pained him for a long time, and his fellow men of the Island considered him lucky to even still possess it. They had claimed he would be lame, a half-cripple, but that did not come to pass. It healed slowly, like his mind, but it did not fail him. It would never be the same as it once was, but he would never have to lean on a piece of wood to move, and for that he thought he might as well throw up a nod of thanks to whatever danced behind the clouds in the sky.

Autumn was shuddering, giving way to the march of Winter, and Sandor could feel the air carrying a sense of ill alongside the newborn chill. He was presently in the fields, digging, as he always did, when he heard voices in the near distance. Generally, he would pay no mind to them, as visitors came and went as often as the sun and moon rose and hid, but he picked up something among them that caught his attention.

 _A woman's voice_.

He looked up from his earthen task to locate the voices, and his eyes widened slightly when he saw a woman, smaller than he but bigger than most men alive, walking up a path parallel to the field with a small party. She had short blonde hair and an ungainly gait, her body draped in armor and a sword sheathed at her side. Beside her stood a boy, wiry and black of hair, and two other men, but only one Sandor recognized as a wandering septon by the name of Meribald. He unconsciously pulled his hood down and his scarf tighter around his face.

Sandor alternated between observing them and digging the grave for just one of the many fallen, until they eventually came up the path and right beside him. A dog in their company broke rank, four legs bounding up to him and tail wagging vivaciously. Sandor smiled briefly, reaching down to scratch it behind the ear, before the large woman spoke.

"And who is this?"

The septon eyed Sandor warily for a moment, before turning his eyes back on the blond brute. "Just a gravedigger. A novice here on the Isle. He and his brothers work here in service of the Faith, and they will continue to do so while men rage against one another."

She stared at him, eyes searching and suspicious, and he thought for a moment that she might discover just who he was. No realization sparked in her big, blue eyes, however, and she looked away a moment later. And then the party was off again, walking up the path and toward the various structures of the Quiet Isle. Sandor watched them melt into the distance with a curiosity that welled up just below his heart, and in a moment, his spade was forgotten, and he was trudging up the hill in silent pursuit.


	2. Chapter 2

One Banner Shall Fly

 **A/N** : Once again, ain't nothin that's mine besides any characters that find their way out of my stupid brain and into the story. Thanks for reading!

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 _Revelations on the Quiet Isle_

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oOoOoOo

" _Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy."_

 _~Aristotle._

oOoOoOo

The air had picked up a chill, a little acrimony from the North, as Sandor walked the cobbled path up towards the center settlement of the Quiet Isle. Wind came and left, but it always held a message; it was from the gusts that the huge man knew that Winter was truly to descend upon them all. The icy breeze snarled around him and bit at his cloak, tossing the fabric about and yanking on it like an invisible child. He must have looked like a wraith slowly trudging up that little causeway, a harrowing from some forgotten world beyond the dust and mortality of the earth, his face covered by cloth and his hands gloved in black leather. He wore the plaingarb of the Quiet Men, an obsidian cloak with a peaked hood that sat an emblem of his devotion to a simpler way of life across his shoulders and of mourning for his former self in his breast. He felt no sorrow in actuality; it was only an omnipresent reminder of the Beast that had died within him under that gnarled tree in the Trident some many moons ago.

The Big Woman and her troupe had disappeared from his view a short time ago, dipping into a small sept that doubled as a gathering place for visitors. No doubt the Elder Brother awaited them inside, his shaven head full of answers to their questions and his wrinkled hands ready to serve. Though the man would talk of much, he knew the pious relic would not mention him. Perhaps he would tell of his death, wrapped in some wordy blanket of metaphor, but the woman would not learn of Sandor's existence on the Isle.

He passed through the wooden gates and continued into the village-of-sorts, nodding solemnly to each of his brothers he passed. He was close enough to hear the faint strains of talk emanating from the holy place, and curiosity began to itch at him at what he might learn of the tidings of the world he had become a stranger to. His feet came to a halt just outside the door to the sept, and Sandor leaned his head close to the frame to listen.

There was a light cough, and then the Big Woman spoke.

"Elder Brother, we have covered much ground and we have not left any stone unturned, but we still have found no trace of her." She paused, letting the room fill with a musty silence. "Last the chatter came to us it was said that she was seen by the mouth of this river, in the clutches of the Hound, Sandor Clegane."

At the mention of his name Sandor's body flexed momentarily. He wondered what other stories had been spun of him throughout the commonland, and he could only grimace darkly as he supposed of what nature they might be. Grim and full of death. The static themes of the Hound.

"I can tell you with certainty that it was not Sansa Stark that traveled with the Hound," replied Elder Brother, his aged voice low and full of knowing. "Rather, it was Arya Stark, her younger sister."

The room fell silent as its occupants absorbed this knowledge, before the Woman again spoke.

"If it was Arya with the Hound, what happened to them?"

"Well, my lady," answered Elder Brother slowly. "I can tell you of only one of their fates: the Hound's. I found him, bleeding and in his throes, under a tree at the Trident. It was there that beast known as the Hound perished in my arms."

"If that is true, and the Hound is dead, what of Arya? Has she been seen?"

"I'm afraid I don't know the whereabouts of the little lady Stark," Elder Brother reaffirmed. "She had taken flight before I had discovered the Hound. Unfortunately, I can't say it is very likely she will have made it far on her own. The wilderness does not take kindly to little girls as its guests."

"So the Mad Dog of the Saltpans is a ghost," gathered a third voice, its deeper tones tinged with disdain.

"It would seem that way, Ser Hunt," Elder Brother confirmed.

Gods, everything the man said was a curtain, thought Sandor. There was always something idling beneath his words, and only those with brains full of guile or half a second round's wit would think to examine them on a deeper plane. In many ways, he hated that, the dressing up of speech with hidden daggers, as it has always been of something of value to him to be straightforward. _Dogs don't lie._

The Woman interrupted his reverie with tones both anxious and pressing.

"Both Starks charged to me, Elder Brother. I have to find them."

Sandor was confused at this. Charged? Was this Gargantuan Woman to bring them back to the fat golden cats in King's Landing? Inexplicably, Sandor felt anger burbling like a sour stew in his belly. They were fatherless, browbeaten, and lost, and the Throne still hadn't given them enough of their share of misfortune? He didn't know why he cared; he didn't know why at the thought of the little bird being recaptured he shuddered ever so slightly, like he had been jabbed with a hundred little needles. All he knew was that, somehow, there was something _there_. Something visceral that clawed at his mind right above the nape of his neck, telling him that there might be meaning to this turn of events, to the visit of the Big Woman and her companions, to the death of the Hound. He just needed to find out what it was.

"If you do not mind, might I ask why they are of importance to you?" queried Elder Brother, vocalizing the thoughts of the huge man outside the door.

"It is my sworn duty," she stated. "I have to find them and bring them to-,"

In that moment, he had decided, as his own free man. His life as the Hound was forfeit; that bitter old dog had receded into the deepest reaches of himself, never to heel and bark at the command of a master again. There was now only Sandor, and he was ill-content to simply shovel the earth of some forgotten island in the middle of a damned river. He wasn't going to miss his second chance to protect that glimmering piece of innocence found in Sansa Stark that the world so desperately wanted to color black and turn to ash. He had failed the little bird once; once is all it would remain in history.

He flung open the door to the sept.

"You'll be taking them nowhere."


	3. Chapter 3

One Banner Shall Fly

 **A/N:** Generally, it's well understood that none of this is mine. Thanks for reading.

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

 _Slipping the Leash_

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oOoOoOo

" _Now the wren has gone to roost and the sky is turnin' gold_ _  
_ _And like the sky my soul is also turnin'_ _  
_ _Turnin' from the past, at last and all I've left behind."_

 _~Ray LaMontagne, "Old Before Your Time"._

oOoOoOo

The unthinkable passed with a diseased beat, the air of the room seeming to expand as the ballooning enormity of the moment came to the fore. The traveling party leapt to their feet, scattering their seats and displacing the items atop the table. Supper had come to a sudden close with the arrival of chilling surprise for dessert.

A unique and unnerving silence settled over the room, a blanket of anxiety knit by a shaking hand, as neither faction knew quite how to react. Sandor loomed there, menacingly tall and eyes alight with a terrible anger, his words replaying over and over in his mind like the squawk of a foreign bird as he waited for the drawing of a sword or the swing of a hand. His face was still wrapped in the measure of scarf, his mass of scar and consequent identity concealed beneath it. They were not yet aware.

Elder Brother jabbed his tongue into the veil of quiet. "Gravedigger..."

Sandor raised his hand, palm outward, and the older man obeyed.

The Big Woman stepped forward, her rather unladylike hand finding the pommel of her steel at her side. "This is royal business, brother. I would kindly ask that you please tu-,"

"I am no brother," he spat, cutting her off. In an unremarkable flash of black, he reached up and tore the scarf from his face.

With a slight gasp, the Big Woman stepped backward, the shock seemingly driving her away from the sight she could not quite believe.

"I-It's you," she managed to stutter, and Sandor stared coolly back. There were no secrets now. Her eyes, sapphire and wide with fear, scanned and scanned again the stretch of his face, taking in the duality of his flesh as the gruesome stories she'd heard of this man played like an alarm in her skull. She drew her sword and leveled it at him. Her armed companions did the same; the youngest one's blade shook like a bough on a windy day. "G-get back, Hound! I know who you are and what you have done!"

Sandor sneered, his half-deadened lips pulling back into a toothy snarl. "You're brave, aren't you, Big Woman? Bet you're bigger than almost all the Lannister bastards you serve."

"My service is of no concern of yours, Hound!" she bit back, her face and body stalwart. But Sandor could tell she was nervous. Dogs can smell fear, and fear makes them hungry. And it had been a long time since he had eaten.

"Please!" came the plea from Elder Brother. "Sandor, what is the meaning of this?!"

Sandor kept his eyes in a dead lock with the Big Woman's. "Thought you'd probably have gathered that by now, Elder Brother. I want to talk with the Big Woman here. _Alone_." He jerked his head pointedly at the other three-quarters of her four-piece clan.

She raised her head but a tiny degree at the moniker, a little snort from her inner steed. Her sword, however, remained exactly where it was. "I am Brienne of Tarth, and why should I grant you my isolated counsel?"

He laughed, but the sound contained no mirth. It was the scrape of an axe over the grindstone, the crack of thunder after the white flash. Harsh and terrible. "Because, Woman, I am unarmed and you are looking for information. I just may be able to provide you with some."

She judged him for a long moment, before relenting and sheathing her sword. "Please leave us," she requested, gesturing to her comrades. "Except for you, Elder Brother. I'd like you to please remain. Any objection, Hound?"

He let his hardened gaze answer for his mouth.

As the door of the sept shut on the last man, Brienne broke the temporary lull in conversation. "I am on royal mission, Hound. You are privy to nothing of my quest. Understood?"

He laughed again, this time more exaggerated. "I am privy to whatever I want to be, Big Woman. Especially," he paused, and for a moment his countenance softened, betraying him and the turmoil that had sprung a leak in his heart. "Especially when it concerns the Little Bird."

Her face showed clearly that she did not understand, warping for a moment into a queer expression. "Little Bird? Speak clearly, Hound."

He sneered at her, gray irises each their own individual tempest, spinning with emotions that he had thought been long extinguished. Now he could not deny they were there even if he drunk himself into the silliest stupor imaginable. He longed to conserve the Little Bird, to keep her whole. He was never much of a sentimental man, but _this..._ this was another thing entirely. This was the closest he had ever come to a noble inclination, and much to his bewilderment, he didn't find it repulsive. He wondered where the source of these waters lay within himself, but only came up empty. Maybe he would understand if he could look upon her beautiful face...

When he did not immediately reply, the Giantess of Tarth adopted a gleam in her eye. "The Lady Sansa...you want the other Stark heiress now do you?! After you lost the first?!"

That vexed him deeply. "I did not lose her.," he growled. "She left me to die beneath a tree. Believe it or not, Giantess, I was trying to help her-,"

"Enough!" she bellowed. She turned to the eldest occupant of the sept. "Elder Brother, how could you harbor this man? He is a violent criminal and the captor of a Stark of Winterfell. He should have been shown no mercy."

Elder Brother looked between the two huge forms at odds, before his aged voice came soft and wise. "My Lady of Tarth, you presume to know much about this man. Maybe, if you'll pardon me, too much." His gaze settled on Sandor. "Before I found him, alone, gasping for air, he might have been someone to fear. Someone unsavory. But I would like to think that part of him was the thing that meet its end beneath that tree, and not the man who bore it upon his shoulders. And he has done nothing to lead me to believe otherwise."

She huffed, a proud little sound. She must have thought that made two liars in the room. "And what is it that you want, Hound? Why did you leave your post out there in the lichyard?"

Truthfully, he did not know what he wanted. He had somewhat of an idea, an idyll of long red feathers, of a field of wheat beyond a shared keep, of soft little hands upon his grizzled neck...but that was a drunkard's dream. He thought, at very base, he needed a reason to bare his gnarled face to the world other than to dig in penance. And, perhaps, the sanctity of the Little Bird could provide that. Could be his coat of arms. Any bleeding truthful knight could not could challenge this cause.

He felt the words escape the well beyond his jaws before he could even comprehend them. "I want to protect the Stark girls."

The Giantess simply gaped at him, her mouth slightly ajar. Sandor thought momentarily that he must have permanently blown out the cogs in her skull, but she managed to formulate a coherent response. "Is this some poor jape, Hound? You cannot expect any sane person to believe this."

"Then you better be ready to accept your raving madness," he snarled. "I failed them both once, and I will not do it again."

He saw Elder Brother's mouth twitch upwards at his words. _The old man might see his pet project redeemed after all_ , thought Sandor, _and not by the arc of a shovel and a thousand holes in the loam._

She ignored his apparent statement of goal. "You said you have information. Of what sort?"

"The sort regarding the wolf-bitch."

She took on an irked look. "Hound, again, speak clearly, or I won't have you speak at all."

Gods, this Giant Bitch was annoying, but he couldn't help but respect the way in which she spoke to him, one of the deadliest combatants in Westeros. He wondered if it was a head full of steam, or if she would prove someone worthy to speak such aggressive words.

"Regarding Arya Stark," he ground out, and he watched as interest flared up in her big cerulean orbs. "As you know, I was with her for some time, right up until she denied me the touch of mercy at the Trident." He grinned; she had an edge to her that could slice deeper than most steel.

She took the bait, a giant blonde-haired fish on the end of his pole. "What do you know of her? Where has she gone?"

He rolled his eyes. "If I knew that I wouldn't be standing here listening to your inane questions, Giantess. However, I do know that she is a rather feisty little animal, and there is a good chance she may still be prowling around on her little wolf-bitch legs."

Brienne snorted. _If she truly were woman_ , thought Sandor, _she certainly didn't act like a proper one_. "That's your information, Hound? That's it?"

He grit his teeth. "No. She spoke highly of Braavos. Said if she were to ever get away from me, she would go there. Had a fancy for the bloody clan of faceless assassins headquartered there."

Brienne searched his eyes for a lingering beat, trying to spot any surfacing duplicity in their stormy depths. She did so in vain.

The Big Woman began to pace the room. "If that's the truth, she could be there now. She could have boarded a ship and gotten there months ago."

"She carried with her a coin from the blasted place," he added. "A token from one of the assassins. He helped her to escape the tortures of Harrenhal."

The Giantess looked convinced. She began to head for the door. "I'm losing time, then. If Braavos is my destination, then I need to be on the move."

Sandor stopped her, grabbing onto one of her broad shoulders as she moved past him. "Wait."

She jerked, as if a flaming sword had been buried into the spot on which his appendage rested. Shaking off the hand, she turned to face him. "What is it, Hound?"

He lowered his head, eyes falling to the floor. Smothering the spikes of pride that shot up his neck, he grumbled, "I wish to join you."

Time seemed to pass with an agonizing limp as she stared hard at him. Eventually, she answered him.

"I've never known you, Clegane. I only know of what is said about you throughout these lands. And if everything I hear is to believed, I should behead you here and now." She paused, taking a deep breath. "But, he vouches for you." She gestured to Elder Brother, who stood wordless to the side. "And he is a very holy man. If you truly have changed, and you want to help the Starks, now is your time to prove it."

He looked up at her, and for a moment, like the blue sky meeting an impending storm, their eyes clashed.

"We ride at dawn."


End file.
